Indonesians eye Australian property

JAKARTA (JP): PT Procon Indah, a property consultant collaborating with Jones Lang Wootton, will hold an Australian property exhibition here to lure a crowd of prospective buyers among Indonesia's high-income group.

The company said here yesterday that Australia had in the last few years overtaken Singapore as the most popular nation for Indonesian property investors.

Company technical advisor, Tim Willing, said the number of Indonesians investing in Australian real estate had increased steadily year to year.

The trend occurred because the Australian property market provided security and investment safety not available in the volatile Asian property market, he added.

"The Australian property market is a very mature market with an average 8 percent appreciation every year for the past 30 years," he said.

He said his company would exhibit Moore Park Gardens, one of the new properties in Sydney, at the Grand Hyatt on Saturday and Sunday.

Moore Park Gardens overlooks Sydney and is only minutes away from two of Australia's leading universities, the University of Sydney and the University of New South Wales.

Willing said some Indonesians usually bought property in Australia to use it to house their children studying there.

"Australia is the first choice of Indonesian students and is the most popular country for parents to send their children to be educated," Willing said.

"There are currently about 15,000 Indonesian students in Australia, where education is very good with excellent schools, colleges and universities that are among the best in the world,"

In addition to educational interests, Indonesian investors also saw other advantages to property investment in Australia including the quality of buildings, he said.

He said that it was very easy for Indonesians to buy property there, while financing was also easy to approve with 5.5 percent interest per year.

To buy Australian property, an investor was required to make a deposit of only 10 percent and then pay no more until construction was completed, he added.

"Moreover, investors can borrow up to 80 percent of the purchase price."

In addition to Sydney, Perth was also popular with Indonesian investors as it offered a high quality lifestyle and excellent education, he said. (icn)